


Or Dye Trying

by misura



Category: The Daevabad Trilogy - S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: Gen, Jossed, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-22 05:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17053700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Invisibility, Ali decided, was not at all as convenient as the stories made it out to be.





	Or Dye Trying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sixthlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/gifts).



"Excuse me, brother, but could you explain to me - oh."

Invisibility, Ali decided, was not at all as convenient as the stories made it out to be. Of course, in the stories, people were able to turn it on and off again at will, whereas he and Dara, as djinn, were invisible to all humans.

"They can't hear you," Dara said, easily dodging the man Ali had been following for the past fifteen minutes, in the hopes of being guided to his workplace. "Or see you."

"Is that what's going on? I just assumed all humans were terribly rude."

Dara scowled. Ali supposed that perhaps he should be more polite to someone who had more or less saved his life - after Ali had killed him, even, though Ali's memories of that event were rather fuzzy, not to say non-existent. He dreamt about it sometimes, he thought. About the lake, and the marid.

"Um, so what do you think we should do?" Ali asked.

Dara's scowl deepened. "Go home. We don't belong here."

"Well, Nahri - " Ali started, before he decided that getting out another word was less important to him than remaining alive.

"Nahri is my Nahid, and I am her Afshin, and neither of us should be in the human world," Dara stated.

Ali wondered if that meant Dara blamed _him_ for the fact that they were here. _I never asked you to save my life!_ he wanted to say. _It's not fair to blame me for something you decided to do on your own!_ Of course, saving Ali's life probably hadn't been Dara's idea.

It had almost certainly been Nahri's.

"Given the number of people who want you dead, this seems a pretty good place to hide." Ali knew that this was the argument Nahri had used to convince Dara to come here in the first place.

Naturally, that offered no guarantee whatsoever that Dara would also accept it from _him_.

"And anyway," Ali added quickly, "it's only temporary. Until we've come up with a plan." _A plan that, by preference, doesn't involve you slaughtering my family._ True, Ali's own father had condemned him to die, but ... he was still Ali's father. Ali might not agree with all of his father's policies, and he might have been hoping to make some changes when it came to the treatment of the shafit, only he'd always intended those changes to be brought about peacefully, by talking to people. By making them see that the shafit _deserved_ equal treatment.

"I don't see a lot of plan-making going on," Dara said. "You're like a little kid who's visiting the Great Bazaar for the first time."

"Heart-meltingly adorable and impossible not to smile at?"

"Easily lost." Dara's expression was very grim.

_He's bluffing. He saved your life, remember?_ Ali swallowed. As a rule, Dara didn't scare him, but Ali knew very well how much Dara meant to Nahri, and how badly she wanted for Ali and Dara to get along. To become friends. _Pity_ Dara _doesn't seem to know that._ Then again, would Ali really want Dara to become his friend solely to please Nahri?

_Absolutely. When it comes to Dara, I'll be happy to take what I can get._

Ali sighed. "Look, I know you don't like me. I can't blame you. I mean, I did kill you, so - "

"You? Oh, please. You couldn't put a scratch on me if I had one hand tied behind my back." Dara snorted. "It was the marid. You were just a tool. Only an idiot would hold the actions of a man while he was possessed against him."

Ali decided not to push for a definitive statement on whether or not that meant Dara did, in fact, hold Ali accountable for the marid's actions. "That's good to hear," he said. "Thank you."

"Though it's true enough that I don't like you," Dara said. "You're trouble."

_How does it feel to agree with my father about something?_ "In what way am I trouble?"

"You're a bad influence on Nahri," Dara said. "You distract her from things that are important."

Ali bit down on his first response, which was that Dara underestimated Nahri's ability to focus. _I can't win. If I suggest I know Nahri better than him, he bites my head off. If I suggest that Nahri is anything less than perfect, he bites my head off._ "You don't think that she should try to enjoy herself?"

"I think she acts too much like this place is her home. It's not her home. It's just where she spent the first part of her life, before I found her and showed her where she truly belonged."

Ali suspected that the key phrase in that sentence was _'before I found her'_. He suddenly wondered if anyone would ever speak about him the way Dara spoke about Nahri, and whether or not it should sadden him to think it unlikely.

"I don't think she belongs here," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But I do think she is allowed to have fun being here, and I enjoy having her show me around and explain things."

"You're unworthy," Dara said, then grimaced, as if he'd spoken too quickly. As if he'd given something away.

Ali bit the inside of his cheek. Laughing at Dara, the Scourge of Qui-zi, would be a very, very bad idea. _He doesn't dislike me because I killed him. He dislikes me because of_ Nahri _. He's jealous!_ The realization came as a huge relief. Sure, Ali liked Nahri, and he hoped Nahri liked him back, but they were just friends. Ali had no intention of courting Nahri, or making her his wife. _Do I?_

Well, if Dara hadn't been there, Ali supposed he might have toyed with the idea. He did like Nahri, after all, and as a prince, he did have to marry _someone_. Why not Nahri? _Alas, Dara_ is _here, very much so, in fact. So there's no point at all in my thinking about this._

"Yes," he said. "I am." Nahri might like him, but only someone blind, deaf and stupid would be able to miss the fact that she loved Dara as much as Dara loved her. It was a mystery to Ali why they weren't married already; it would have solved a lot of problems, in his opinion.

Not that he had any intention of saying so out loud.

Dara looked faintly surprised and maybe a tiny bit impressed.

"Nonetheless," Ali said, "I consider it an honor to call her my friend, and it would please me to call you such as well. And as your friend, I would humbly ask you to grant me the pleasure of seeing for myself how these people produce rugs."

Dara's scowl returned. "I expect they produce them much the same way as we do. And if not, so what?"

Ali put on his most charming smile. "Please?"

Dara actually shuddered. "Fine. Stick close. I don't want anyone to start to suspect our presence here, or assume we're ghosts or something."

"Of course." Ali very carefully didn't smile or show his sense of triumph in any other way.

_Upon my name, I will either win your friendship, or die trying._

_And if I can't accomplish that much, at least I will make you enjoy your time in the human world._


End file.
